College's IT Vice President Among Presenters at 'Portal' Conference

Pennsylvania College of Technology's "myPCT" intranet for employees and students was the subject of a presentation by the college's vice president for information technology during the recent "Portal 2008: Measurement and Assessment" conference in Gettysburg.

More than 160 people from 80-plus institutions attended the June 3-6 conference, which featured panel discussions and sessions about shared-information portals in higher education including Jim Cunningham's presentation of "Campus Portals, Take Two: Moving Forward With Online Collaboration and Social Networking."

"Penn College's recently implemented Microsoft Sharepoint-based employee and student "˜myPCT portal' included the basic features of any portal: general news, personalized announcements, campus information and one-stop access to key administrative and academic systems," Cunningham said. "However, by utilizing the document-management capabilities, communication and collaboration tools, and social-networking aspects of the Microsoft Sharepoint portal infrastructure, (it) dramatically enhanced the ability of campus departments, committees, task forces, student groups and other small teams to work together."

His presentation reviewed the design, development and implementation of the college portal, with specific focus on its document-management, workflow, team-collaboration and social-networking capabilities.

Cunningham holds a bachelor's degree in technology management from Penn College and an associate degree in computer science from Williamsport Area Community College, its predecessor institution.

His areas of responsibility include academic computing, administrative computing, telecommunications, campus network, media services and document services. A member of the college's senior management team, he is responsible for strategic and long-range planning for all IT-related initiatives.

For more information about Penn College, visit online , e-mail or call toll-free (800) 367-9222.